An acute case of the Fridays.

This week has been all kinds of crazy. Keep in mind that I haven't taught five days a week in quite some time, and now I am doing so with a brand new prep, albeit one where I get to teach a bunch of my favorite books. I can't think of a better way to be initiated back into the world of professor-not-administrator.

I have been blessed with a bunch of smart students who are open-minded and have things to say. The last time I taught lit was Fall 2009, and since then I have only taught poetry writing classes. I'd like to know how many calories I burn per class. It's a whole new ballgame.

This is all making me want to write more poems and send them out. I did revise two poems yesterday, and I wrote a new one with little fanfare and moderate success. I find that I'm editing more lately. Writing less. I need to set some goals, but I am giving myself a bit of a break due to the intense summer class (cramming fifteen weeks into five).

Tomorrow I am reading at the Cedar Lee Pub, for Heavy Feather Review. Here's the scoop. It's an honor to be among such fine company. I'll be reading at least one brand new poem.

It's funny how I feel more comfortable about not-writing now that I'm super swamped. I do really love "having to" read all of the time. After 7/11 I will be on vacation for a month. Perhaps next week I'll start a countdown.

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I live in glorious Akron, Ohio, where I write poems, edit the Akron Series in Poetry, and teach literature and creative writing. I am the author of five full-length collections of poems, including A Sunny Place with Adequate Water, Small Enterprise, and the collaborative poetry collection The Czar, with Jay Robinson (all from Black Lawrence Press). I've received an NEA fellowship in poetry, and several individual excellence awards from the Ohio Arts Council. In 2019 my first collection of prose poems, Partial Genius, is due to drop from BLP.
In my spare time, I like to photograph garbage.